HARRISON SAGRAVES - LANGUAGE ARTS ENTHUSIAST
Scholastic and Extracurricular Works
学内／学外作業
Japanese Language
ビジネス紹介
Business Introduction
In my Business Japanese class, I got the opportunity to present about a business that I had interest in. Fortunately, I was able to work as a translator for the Yuki Experience Center in Yuki Town, Hiroshima, so I had the perfect material to work with and present! The slides themselves I kept simple, with bite-sized information easy to digest for my audience, and I let myself explain statistics for the company (hired personnel, associated businesses, popular items sold) in the form of speech.
好きな食べ物 My Favorite Food
For my expert level Japanese course, my classmates and I were required to create a simple presentation to talk about, describe and explain our favorite food. This was a simple exercise to demonstrate each student's ability to use informative speech in Japanese.
コンビニ人間あらすじpt. 1 & 2 Convenience Store Woman
During a guided reading class, I came across "Convenience Store Woman." The book is about a person who doesn't quite fit into conventional Japanese society, but finds solace in the fact that her convenience store job has a level of regulation that allows her to feel needed. In an interesting turn of translation, the Japanese phrasing for this book is "Convenience Store Human," which I find to be much more suiting to the main character's struggle to organically fit into society.
Culture/Literature Competency
Comparison of Japanese and Korean Language
I had the fortune of meeting two students in my language studies class, who shared the same interest in the Asian language sphere as myself. One student was part of the same Japanese language curriculum as me, the other student was currently studying abroad in South Korea, and they were an adept speaker in the language. We decided to use our partnership to research on and develop a presentation on comparisons between Japanese and Korean. The emphasis was on honorific language, but besides this I learned much about the historical contexts of the two languages; both in the sense of their respective beginnings, and in the sense of the effects of Japanese Imperialism during the Second World War.
東尋坊と丸岡城
Toujinbou and Maruoka Castle
During my study abroad visit to Japan, I participated in a class venturing around several cultural heritage spots of Fukui District. This document is my written analysis, as well as the history of Toujinbou and Maruoka Castle. The former is a gorgeous natural structure of rock pillars protruding out from the coast of Japan. The latter is a lasting Cultural Heritage spot for Japan, that belonged to the Maruoka Clan during the Edo Period.
三方五湖と若狭博物館
Mikata Lake View and Wakasa Anthropological Musuem
For this journey in my class venturing around Fukui District, my classmates and I visited a mountain that looks out over 5 of Fukui's major lakes. Besides this, we got the opportunity to visit a musuem that specialized in the antrhopological history of the Japanese people since the island's founding. In this document, I have written what I learned of Japanese living culture, culinary culture, as well as how agriculture was handled in the Japan of the Joumon Era.
Business Competency
観光協会英訳
Yuki Experience Center Tourist Association Guidance Map, English TL
Over the course of Summer 2021, I participated in an internship at the Yuki Experience Center in Hiroshima. My proudest achievement was the English translation for their main information signboard. It took two weeks of tireless work, and giving myself a stern regimen to hammer out the work properly. I learned much over the course of this project and my many other projects with the Yuki Experience Center, and oddly, the least of those were Japanese language related. In order to see through my job thoroughly, I researched tirelessly about the regional culture of Yuki Town, about the history of Hiroshima, about geology, flowers, local businesses, and the grandest of all was learning about Warring States Era China.
湯来交流体験センターeMTB説明英訳
Yuki Experience Center eMotorBike Tour
When I wasn't working on big projects for the Yuki Experience Center, I was translating for their personal Instagram account. I had offered to translate for their homepage website, but they already had that handled, so I gladly took up the opportunity to translate for their social media platforms instead. This document is just a single sample of my work, but I made it my goal and promise to my advisor and friend at the Experience Center, to accomplish a quota of 5 translated Instagram posts per day. My work here was a very valuable experience in adapting to learn about what I need to translate for.
Literature/Humanities
Justice and other Arbitrary Things
I took a class on Japanese film, which went over the techniques of move making in postwar Japan, as well as how these techniques translated over to future mediums, such as manga and animation. This document is my analysis of the Yasujirou Oozu film "Dragnet Girl." Oozu was a legendary pioneer in focusing on the medium of "film" as a means to portray art, rather than just for telling a story. Dragnet Girl presents itself with an attention to the world that the actors interact with, and how Oozu deliberately set each scene to convey larger pictures about Japanese society at the time.
A Presentation on Nagisa Oshima
The director that I enjoyed the most over the course of my film class was Nagisa Oshima. I was ecstatic to find that I would be able to work on a presentation about him; his attention to detail for his films, as well as the political messages that he addressed as the theme of his films were very moving, and I enjoyed having the opportunity to discuss the subject of his films with my classmates.
Seven Shakes of Pepper Under the Moonlight
During my second to last semester at Clemson University, I took a playwriting class that I found to build well on to my previous experience writing short stories and poetry. I have the coursework for these three classes documented below in my Course Records, but here is a sample that I had written for my end of course "Play in One Act."
Human Interaction and the Law
During my first semester at Clemson University, I took a class on legal philosophy. This is one of the responses that I gave to a reading assignment of which I felt was particularly fascinating. The author reveals the idea that organizations work under a code of ethics similarly to how individuals do. This further built on the idea that I had learned in this class, of which that humans fit into a role in society, and in these "roles" that they play, certain things are expected of them.
Course Records
General Credits---
MAT 109 Coll Algebra w/ Mode – MATH 1990
Basic algebra and problem solving in mathematics. Math was never my strong suit, so persevering to finish this course was quite a challenge.
PSY 201 General Psychology – PSYC 2010
Introduction to psychology. Furthered my interests in the general makeup of the human mind, and laid the groundwork for my basic understanding of psychology.
ARV 110 Computer Graphics –
Computer graphics design class centered around photoshop.
ARV 121 Design –
Basic art design class that I had taken when I majored in art.
ART 101 Art History & Appreciation – ART 2100
A study of the history of several different art forms, art revolutions and famous artworks, while also giving feedback and creating personal replications of each new learned art style.
AST 101 Solar System Astron – ASTR 1010/ASTR 1030 (Lab)
Elementary solar system astronomy.
ASTR 1020 Stellar Astronomy –
A continued class on the solar system astronomy class that I had taken at my previous school. I got to learn many things regarding phenomena existing outside of our solar system.
BUS 101 Intro to Bus – BUS 1010/BUS 1999 (Transfer Elective)
Class utilizing math and statistics to understand the fundamentals of business.
CPT 167 Intro to Prog Logic – ELEC 0001
Learning the basics for programming language, including hexadecimal.
CPT 170 Microcomputer Applic – CPSC 1200
Learned about the use of Microsoft based applications such as Word and Excel. Certainly helped out for designing papers, resumes, and most importantly Excel spreadsheets. I’ve used them before in Japanese workplaces, and it all becomes a very smooth process when you know how to navigate Excel.
HIS 101 Western Civ to 1689 – HIST 1720
A thorough teaching of European history from the earliest records of human history up to 1689. A very enlightening class, where I met many interesting people, including my professor.
HIS 102 Western Civ Post 1689 – HIST 1730
A continuation of the previous class in Western Civ. Just as fun and educational, if not more, than the last time!
HSS 205 Technology & Society – STS 1010
A study on the parallel growth of technology and society.
MAT 130 Elementary Calculus – MATH 1020
Introduction to calculus. I struggled a lot to follow along with this class, but eventually grasped how it works!
MUS 105 Music Appreciation – MUSC 2100
A study of music arms both classical and modern.
SOC 101 Introduction to Sociology – SOC 2010
A fundamental class of the construct of law in society, as well as social constructs.
SPC 205 Public Speaking – COMM 2500
Learned to research subjects and present them to an audience. Was especially fun because I met many interesting people and I even got to take the class with my brother.
CHM 110 College Chemistry I –
Elementary chemistry. Was definitely more difficult than I was bargaining for, and also had far more math involved than I could have ever bargained for. Astronomy was easily my strong-suit in comparison to any other field of lab science.
CPT 234 C Programming I –
While trying to find an academic fit for myself after shifting from an art major, I dabbled in programming and computer language, but it never quite gave me the same appeal as human language. To this day I still find that difference in me strange, and I think I’d like to go back to learning programming sometime in the future.
PHIL 3300 Contemporary Issues in Phil –
Studied legal and moral situations through the lens of established philosophical ideologies. This class gave me a better scope on how to gauge situations that require critical thinking. It was a great class that I looked forward to participating in each week!
Language Focus---
ENG 101 English Composition I –
It may be odd to read this, but I failed this class twice before passing it. Now that I’ve experienced learning from three different professors on the subject, I’m glad to say that I got a better view of what I wanted to get out of the English language as a whole. It also made it all the more rewarding when I saw my improvement and the implementation of what I had learned in English Composition II.
ENG 102 English Composition II – ENGL 1030
English writing class level 2. I met one of my favorite professors here, and this was a definite point where I felt a connection with language in both terms of reading comprehension and writing composition.
ENGL 2020 Lit Forms and Creative Writing –
An excellent class in poetry reading and writing! I loved this class and every single person in there with me. Even though it was an online course, I looked forward every week to listening to what everybody had to present, and also to presenting what my creativity could dredge up in the form of poetry.
ENGL 3450 Intr Creative Writing: Fiction –
Similar to my previous creative writing class, but this one was focused on short stories. Rather than poems, this time I worked on and read short stories of roughly 10 pages in length. This class was certainly great for broadening my spectrum and seeing the radiant talent in all of my classmates, however I did find that poetry suited me better than prose.
ENGL 4470 Playwriting Workshop –
Playwriting had a mixed sensation that felt somewhere between the lines of poetry and short story writing. My professor often mentioned that the art of absurdism seemed like my ally of writing, albeit it’s admittedly very hard to write entertaining and engaging absurdist works in the form of plays. All around, the class was extremely fun! I looked forward to it every week, and I even went to see some of the plays that my classmates wrote and starred in themselves!
LANG 3000 Intro Linguistics –
Certainly one of the most impactful classes I took on learning about language learning. I got to team up with another student learning Japanese, as well as another student studying abroad in South Korea in order to compare and contrast the languages of Japanese and Korean.
Japanese Language Centric Courses---
JAPN 1010 – JAPN 2020 Intermediate Japanese –
In accordance to my previously attained Japanese proficiency, I skipped beginners’ level Japanese and started in intermediate level. All of my Japanese instructors throughout my coursework have been amazing in aiding me during the entirety of my school career. My gratitude to them is boundless, as well as the amount that I have learned from studying under them.
JAPN 3050 Japanese Conversation & Comp –
This is the class that I had originally taken for my study abroad elective due to COVID. Needless to say, the online study abroad experience was lack luster, and participating in a 3 hour long class starting from 10 PM doesn’t sound appealing on paper, but I myself enjoyed it! The tutor students from Japan that participated with us were a kind and fun group of people, and it was great to be able to talk with so many people in an environment like that, even if via a computer screen.
JAPN 3160 Japanese for Int’l Business I –
My first class that I took with Takeuchi-sensei, and my first Japanese class that I got to take offline. I met many of my school friends here, and the lectures in this class were always lively and full of wonderful stuff to study about.
JAPN 4030 Internship in Japan –
Over the summer I participated in an online internship in Yuki Town, Hiroshima. It was perhaps the most fulfilling work that I’ve done in my career speaking Japanese, and I helped them with big projects such as translating the brochure for the Yuki Experience Center, as well as their advertising signboard. In my off time I helped translating the Center’s personal Instagram page, attempting to translate as many past posts as possible, with 5 at the least, and 10-11 translated posts on my better days. Finally, I helped to put together an Excel spreadsheet ledger of all of the businesses, hotspots, and tourist attractions within the vicinity of Yuki Town. It was a wonderful experience that only could have been better if I could have gone their firsthand to help them directly!
JAPN 4060 Intro to Japanese Literature –
A class led around the study of introductory level literature in Japanese, spanning from older stories and poems, to modern day novels and manga. This class was also excellent for learning how to discuss things with people in Japanese, and how to properly listen and understand others, and how to concisely give my thoughts to another person in Japanese. My friends and I had a lot of fun here, and absolutely loved the class! I always looked forward to it!
JAPN 4560 Japanese Film –
The course went over the Japanese film industry, as well as how the post war era of Japan had affected the film industry and its evolution from the 1950’s onwards. The class also analyzed mediums such as manga and light novels in order to look into the implicitly cinematic structures present in each medium.
JAPN 3980 Directed Reading –
The book that we focused on for the class was a novel by a Clemson University alumni, Professor Gregory Khezrnejat. The title is “Kamogawa Runner,” and it delves into the experiences that the aforementioned had gone through in his journey learning Japanese, as well as his time becoming a JET Program Assistant Language Teacher. The book was very influential in the way that it gave me an outlook for what I want to do with my ability as a bilingual person. I want to be able to bridge gaps between people and their worlds, and assure that on the other side of that bridge, no single respective person feels ostracized. Big shot goals, but I believe in humankind’s ability to smoothly move towards this future.
Other Classes Helpful Towards my Minor---
HIST 3330 Hist of Mod Japan –
Learned about the history of Japan since the forming of the Muromachi period up to the current term of prime minister in Japan. Helped to get a better grasp on Japanese history that would have normally been difficult to study through on my own.